Pornhub brings website into compliance with restrictive new Kansas law
TOPEKA (KSNT) - Pornhub, a major adult content website, said it has made the necessary changes to its platform ahead of July 1 when a restrictive new Kansas law is set to become active.
KSNT 27 News reached out to Pornhub for comment on the imminent activation of Senate Bill 394. A statement was provided by Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, on the new law.
"Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy, and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults.
Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.
This is not speculation. We have seen how this scenario plays out in the United States. In Louisiana last year, Pornhub was one of the few sites to comply with the new law. Since then, our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80 percent. These people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don't ask users to verify age, that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content. In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children."
Aylo statement excerpt
A spokesperson for Pornhub responding to 27 News confirms its platforms were brought into compliance with the law as of Thursday, June 27, blocking access to Kansans. The law, along with dozens of others, is slated to go into effect on Monday, July 1.
SB 394 requires the use of age-verification technology to permit access to internet websites, like Pornhub, which have material considered harmful to minors. The bill was initially presented to the Kansas Legislature for debate by Republican Senator J.R. Claeys, of Salina, on Jan. 24. KSNT 27 News reached out to Claeys for comment on the enactment of SB 394.
The Kansas Senate passed the bill on Feb. 15 at a vote of 40 to 0 with the Kansas House voting 92 to 31 on March 26. Governor Laura Kelly allowed the bill to become law without the benefit of her signature, arguing against its implementation with a statement delivered on April 12:
“While well-meaning in its efforts to protect children from content the legislature considers ‘harmful to minors,’ this bill is vague in its application and may end up infringing on constitutional rights, which is an issue being litigated in other jurisdictions over similar bills. For that reason, I will allow this bill to become law without my signature.”
Gov. Laura Kelly statement in reaction to SB 394
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